by Ree Soesbee
On travel-weary legs, they made a lagging march across the plains of the Lion. Ahead, the Spine of the World Mountains rose with agonizing slowness.
"So much for fortitude," Sukune said mournfully when they finally neared the mountains. "The Dragon are not prepared for war. We have been too long in our mountains—too long...."
"Enough, old man," Hitomi said without malice. She pointed across the dry plains.
"Look there."
Ahead, in the foothills of the Spine of the World Mountains, lay Toturi's encampment. Unicorn banners and the banners of several smaller clans fluttered from the tents. Above them, a wolf mon—unknown to Hitomi—stood out against the breeze.
"The ronin encampment." Hitomi said thoughtfully. Lifting her gaze above the banners, she made out Beiden Pass—a narrow cleft in the wall of mountains. "So, the guide did know what he was talking about."
"Toturi's persona] banner is not among the tents. That means he has already left for battle," the ronin called back as if aware of Hitomi's scrutiny. "There ... there he is." The ronin pointed toward a hillock where several riders raced over the crest of the hill. "Those are reserves. There is a battle. I'd recommend you send a messenger to the encampment Hitomi-sama. When they send word of Toturi's position, we can join in the fight."
As the messenger raced toward the encampment, Hitomi turned the rest of the army toward the distant hill. With luck, they would arrive in an hour, perhaps less. Soon enough to make a difference, if the Fortunes favored them.
Hitomi paused to look at the stream of Dragon legions as they marched past. Her commanders saluted, each one showing respect to the mon she bore. Few showed any more than was necessary, and no salute was accompanied by even a glance of favor to Hitomi herself.
In the ranks of the Agasha, Tamori rode a gentle bay steed beside Mirumoto Yukihera's large palomino.
Yukihera and Tamori, Hitomi thought critically. What plans are they making now?
Though Tamori had not made good on his threat of sep-puku, Hitomi could feel the rising tensions in the troops as they approached their destination. Conflict was inevitable— and treachery... more so.
They rode with heir heads bowed together, Yukihera smiling pleasantly as the older man laughed at some amusing quip.
Hitomi set heels to her mount and rode onward. She leaned into the gentle rocking of her horse's gait and tried to still her mind. The Mirumoto had taught her to meditate, to hush her inner voice, but Hitomi had never been very successful. Even now, it whispered past her mental barriers, shattering the silence with a word ... Satsu.
How she missed him, his wisdom, his laughter. It felt as if her brother were only inches from her, as if her soul could reach out and take his hand. He was so close to her, yet his soul had never spoken. Not in the years that she had searched for him, searched for the answer to the riddle of his death. Satsu, why did you leave me? Where have you gone?
"Hitomi-sama." The sudden voice startled her out of the meditation. "Yasu has sent word. A messenger from the ronin encampment has arrived and is waiting to take you to Toturi's tent. The stonecutter awaits." Togashi Mitsu strode at Hitomi's side, his callused hand stroking her horse's fine mane. He smiled a wide, toothy grin at her.
"Stonecutter? Hmmph. And when did you get here? I thought you were marching with the Agasha."
"I have been with you all along, Hitomi-sama. You simply have not been looking."
"More riddles," she said. "Riddles tire me, Mitsu. Can you not speak plainly?"
"I am speaking plainly, daughter of Shosan. Listen closely, and you will hear the wind in my words."
She sighed, kicking her horse into a swift walk. "Come on then, Mitsu. If you intend to play this game with me, at least let me do my duty as daimyo between your enigmas."
"Better that you speak as a samurai than as daimyo. It will get you farther."
Hitomi laughed. "Speak, Mitsu? I don't speak. I only shout. Haven't you heard that from the men?"
"I'll teach you a speech, Hitomi-sama."
Do.
"Have all, be all, see all, Daimyo." He chortled. "Know all, take all, break all, and let the thunder come. Forget."
"That's meaningless, Mitsu, and you know it. If you must teach, can you not find something more interesting ... maybe some lessons from Shinsei's Tao?"
The big man grinned, and his muscled rippled under the coiling dragons tattooed across his bare chest. "You are not ready for the Tao. Shinsei speaks, and you do not hear him. Nothing comes from nothing, daimyo of the Mirumoto; your empty heart should know that, better than most."
Hitomi growled. "You strike too close, monk."
"I strike too high, and so do you."
Ignoring him, Hitomi stood up in her stirrups to see above the front line of her legions. Ahead, the banners of the ronin messengers flapped in a strong breeze, and Hitomi paused to consider their makeshift mon. "A wolf for mon. The blazon of a dishonored man, aloft on banners and tents. Toturi's gone mad."
"Mad wolves fight better." Mitsu countered. "They do not know death."
"Come on, riddler," Hitomi said, kicking her horse again. "Let go see what the ronin has in store."
xxxxxxxx
The lands of Beiden Pass were sharp and rugged, much like the mountains of Hitomi's home, except with sharper peaks. They reached toward the sky not as if to embrace it, but as if to tear the stars from their cradle. As the Dragon legions charged over the first hillock, Hitomi could hear the sounds of battle below. She looked down on a wave of Crab samurai within the pass, set against the scattered legions of Unicorn and ronin troops.
There, in the center of the conflict, Toturi's ronin banner waved.
"They fight without us," Daini snorted arrogantly. "Let us show them the difference between a battle and a war."
For once, Hitomi agreed with her brother. Turning in her saddle, she flashed him a sharp smile. "Very well, Daini. If you think so bravely, prove your courage. Take the first legion there," she pointed, "and destroy the archers that are ruining the game."
It was an honor to take the field first, and Daini straightened in his pony's saddle.
"Hai, Daimyo-sama!" He said sharply, signaling a unit of Dragon bushi to his side. They stormed down the hill toward the right, scattering Crab samurai before them like bark before a woodcutter's blade.
Hitomi swiftly put on her helmet, commanding each of her generals forward. A unit of bushi followed her down the hill, their faces serious with expectation. They met with the Crab at the edge of the clearing, their swords shining bright sunlight into the scattered scrub brush. Small groves of trees clung to the rocky the ground, their twisted branches recoiling before the mountain winds. Beneath the trees, ronin and Unicorn samurai littered the ground. The battle had been hard.
"There!" Hitomi's scout called. "Toturi!"
He fought on foot, garbed in armor painted black over gold laces.
Hitomi commanded her men to enter the combat, ignoring their weary faces. Fifteen days of hard marching, and then directly into combat; her father would disapprove. Hitomi grinned ferally. He would no longer disapprove when he saw the field littered with Crab.
The Dragon smashed ferociously into the Crab lines, taking out their commander with the first savage assault. Charging near Toturi, Hitomi and her elite guard cut down three Crab, sending their blood-spattered tetsubo flying in the air. The Dragon struck cruel cuts. There would be no mercy.
Toturi glanced toward Hitomi and her men, parrying another Crab and dancing out of the way of an arrow. His light-brown eyes brightened, and a smile showed beneath the ronin's mempo mask. A mane of thick black hair spilled from beneath his helmet and out over his do. The ends of his hair were still golden, a remnant of his days as champion of the Lion. Some things took time to heal; others never healed at all.
Which is Toturi, she wondered? The past, or the future?
Two Crab surrounded Hitomi, but she fought them both. Her katana twisted the first tetsubo blow aside, and her wak-izashi cut through
the laces of the second Crab's obi. He was not injured, but his armor fell open where the belt had been cut. With a savage stroke, Hitomi opened his belly.
Toturi stood his ground beside a gully, but his forces retreated ever farther from his position as the Crab pressed their line back.
"To the general!" Hitomi commanded, driving her mount forward. Her troops swiftly moved to follow her will.
They engaged the Crab almost immediately. To reach Toturi, the Dragon Clan would have to fight their way through the Hida line. A Crab screamed, and Hitomi turned to look.
Toturi cut the Crab's wooden club in two. "Fight with your grandfather's sword, Hida," Toturi said angrily, "and your honor will not fail you. Fight with a stick," the ronin sliced the Crab's head from his shoulders, "and you will fall."
Nearing Toturi, Hitomi caught another Crab's blow on her sword. She pushing the steel tip of his tetsubo away from Toturi's back. The Crab outnumbered them, and their long polearms reached through their guard.
One swing knocked Toturi's legs out from beneath him. The ronin was not injured, but as he rolled to find his feet again, another Crab charged.
Three of Hitomi's men leapt forward, cutting down the Crab warrior and fighting their way through to Hitomi and the ronin guard. Now she could see why Toturi had not been able to move away from the gully. Two of his ronin huddled there wounded, and the general had been protecting them with his own life.
What kind of commander risks himself for so small a price? Hitomi wondered. She stood above the wounded ronin, trading blows with a tremendous Hida.
The Crab smiled down at her, fetid breath wafting through the holes in his teeth. "Little Dragon," he said. "Die fast."
Cutting into his leg, Hitomi brought her wakizashi up to knock aside the Hida's massive axe. "Good suggestion," Hitomi countered, her black eyes shining with bloodlust. Slicing first through the Crab's arm and then his torso, she watched as the Hida fell.
Toturi pushed himself to his feet, lifting his sword into a ready stance. If Hitomi and her men had not arrived ...
"Mirumoto Hitomi-sama?" Toturi said.
The Mirumoto daimyo nodded in return. "Do the Crab have reinforcements?" Hitomi called over the press of battle.
"Yes, in the west." Toturi pointed with his katana at a shattered cliff wall. "They will have to dig their way out. We have until nightfall before they can reach the battle, but by then, it will be finished. Thanks to you."
"lie." She said curtly. "Thanks to my champion, who sends his regards."
He nodded. Toturi had a serious face, as if he rarely smiled. These days, Hitomi thought, what would he have to smile about? His family was dead, cast out, his name ruined. Though he had once been the greatest Akodo general in the empire, perhaps in history, now he was nothing but chaff before the wind. As were his men.
A cluster of Unicorn samurai charged past, their horses stirring the dust and grass. They drove back one Crab contingent, easing the pressure on the ronin and the daimyo. Another Crab unit swelled toward the field to meet them, outnumbering the Unicorn two to one. The odds were fair, Hitomi realized, because the horses fought for their masters. A Unicorn samurai fell from an arrow, but his steed continued to fight, tearing into the Crab with hooves and teeth. The stallion was brought down by a polearm with sharp teeth, but not before it had killed three men.
"The Unicorn samurai fight for you?"
"Hai. The Unicorn Clan has leant me some aid, now and again. I find their cavalry indispensable. Hanari in particular," Toturi gestured to a standard that bore the Shinjo mon, "is quite dedicated to defeating the Crab. He's remarkable."
"How many Crab are there?" Hitomi asked.
"Tens of thousand, and more, Mirumoto-sama. They have taken the pass and camped within it. We have skirmished with them a few times as our forces gathered, but never before have they fielded such a force as today. It is as though they plan to advance, not simply defend. They would have entirely overrun us except for your arrival. Now with your legions, we may be able to root them out of the mountains and back toward the Bayushi lands." Toturi smiled.
"The Dragon will crush them. Even now, they scatter." Hitomi glanced out at the battlefield.
Crab units sounded the retreat. The Dragon legions shouted victory, and raised their banners into the air. Their ronin and Unicorn allies cheered with them.
"With our aid, this war will end in days."
"The Crab have allies." Toturi said grimly. "Do not think peace will be so easy."
"Allies? Who? The Crane hate them, and the Phoenix are pacifists."
"There, Hitomi-sama," Toturi pointed, and his face turned grave. "There are the allies of the Crab, and pray to Shinsei that you never have to face them."
The Mirumoto daimyo looked at the retreating line of Crabs, beaten back by the Dragon troops. Sorcerers stood at the rear of the armies, chanting and lifting blood-stained knives. Where the Crab had passed, bodies began to move— the fallen, returning to life through dark powers of magic. Maho coursed through the air, raising bloodied corpses and returning their shattered bodies to a form of blasphemous life.
"By Togashi," Hitomi whispered, and the words caught in her throat. Some of the bodies lifting themselves to follow the Crab retreat were Dragon—her own men, fallen in combat. "Undead?"
"And more, Mirumoto. And more. They have summoned the beasts of the Dark God. Oni. Goblins." Toturi sheathed his sword as the tide of Crab warriors left the field. "Enough,
Hitomi-sama. Do not think on it now." Toturi's voice was commanding, and Hitomi fell back into stride beside him. "The Hida will send ambassadors. They were not aware that the Dragon were coming to our aid. We must shake them from the pass, and if we are careful, convince them that it is too big a risk for them to continue their war."
The two ronin in the gully stood, one supporting the other, and began to make their way back toward the encampment. As Hitomi watched the Crab and their undead hordes stagger back into the twisting corridors of Beiden Pass, she heard her own forces sound the retreat. The day was won.
Summoning her guard, Hitomi followed Toturi and pondered the implications of the ronin's words. The Shadowlands were a place of vile beasts and foul magic, where swamps of blood and brine swelled over wasted lands. If the Crab truly had allied with these creatures . . . Hitomi's thoughts grew angry. For nearly a thousand years, the Crab had protected Rokugan against such beasts, and now they fought beside them. It was obscene.
Tears stung Hitomi's eyes as she thought of the souls of her own men that had now been enslaved to the Shadowlands ... by the Crab.
The Hida had fallen, and they deserved to be destroyed— utterly.
XXXXXXXX
That night, after the sun had fallen, the Crab ambassadors arrived. The Hida wished to speak with the Dragon Clan representative as soon as possible.
Hitomi followed Toturi toward the command tent where the Hida waited. She considered the Crab's options. They would try to force her to take her troops back to the Dragon Mountains, Hitomi surmised, and cut Toturi's reinforcements away before they could change the outcome of the war. She smiled to herself, but her eyes were as black as coals.
The Crab were in for a terrible surprise.
"They are waiting for you, my lord," said a guard at the command tent, and Hitomi recognized the Akodo accent. So this was where Toturi found his men. They were his brothers, members of the family that had been cast out with him. Sensible.
Toturi nodded. "Very well. Let us not make them wait any longer."
Inside Toturi's tent, samurai gathered beneath a flag of truce. Maps on rice paper were spread across a low table, depicting the pass and the lands surrounding it. On one side of the table sat Hida Tsuru, and two men in Crab armor. To the other side, space had been left for Hitomi and her men, and a seat in the center for Toturi. The Unicorn sent no ambassador—no doubt their legions were not large enough to warrant one, or else they did not wish to make their 'official' presence known. Most likely the latter
, Hitomi thought quickly as she bowed and took her seat. Better that the Crab did not know the true strength of their enemy.
After polite greetings and small talk between Toturi and the Crab, Toturi sat at one side of the table. He was well aware that his position as a ronin gave him no authority here. The Mirumoto and the Hida glared across the table at each other, their weapons hanging tensely at their sides
Toturi began, "This is Mirumoto Hitomi-sama, daimyo of the Mirumoto family of the Dragon Clan. These are her men, Daini and Yukihera." Toturi began cautiously, "I assure you, we have the authority and the ability to drive your armies from Beiden Pass. Still, we do not wish to war with you, Hida-san. We all wish nothing more than peace."
"I have a greater wish than peace," Hitomi said suddenly, and all eyes turned to the female samurai in golden armor. "I wish to see the son of the Crab Champion strung on pikes from one end of the pass to the other. I desire his head skewered like a ripe tomato, looking down on his broken armies, and I wish his final moments to have been spent discovering the greatest pain that the empire has ever known." As Hitomi spoke, the Crab general turned to look at her, his eyes growing narrow. She continued, "And I wish, Tsuru-san, that you would leave this tent, cut out the heart of Hida Yakamo, and place it at my feet."
"By the Fortunes," Daini whispered behind her, stunned at the hatred in his sister's voice.
Astoundingly, the Crab did not reach for the tetsubo at his belt. "Now, I remember you," he said, tugging on his beard. "You're that little girl who attacked Yakamo-sama on the fields of Otosan Uchi. So, you're daimyo now?" He snorted. "The Dragon are not men. Their books and riddles have softened their heads as well as their bodies. If you are their finest samurai, they should leap from their mountains like lemmings in a storm. The empire has no use for your clan, Mirumoto. Give yourself in penance to some Lion; perhaps they will break your stubborn spirit when they break your vow of chastity. In any case, you will get nothing from the Crab."
Hitomi leapt forward, her cushion sliding beneath her feet as she rose. Shaking with anger, she pointed a thin finger at the Hida and snarled, "You will be destroyed, along with your Shadowlands allies. It is a blasphemy to the emperor's name that you bring such creatures so far north. Have the Crab forgotten their duty?"
